Tennessee and Back Again!

TRAVELOGUE# 3.14159etc...

6/10/2008 5:12PM_EST

Nashville: a nice place to see, a great place to return to. Melissa and I spent the following three nights with her friend Kyle, and her close friends, seeing sights and exploring the space. Nashville (or Cashville, as the “hip-gangster-wannabes” refer it as) is the kind of city that has music on every corner block, culture in every shop, and sunburns on every other neck. Green trees everywhere, great microbrews (Blackstone Porter? Can I get an Amen?), and a Parthenon replica that I apparently can't take enough pictures of to pass the afternoon. That last bit was written with sarcasm. Wow, tough, disillusioned crowd. Cheer up.

The foot is healing, slowly, thanks to some wintergreen flavored alcohol (it's green!) and gauze. The next day we waited in a walk-in clinic for 2 mother-loving hours (props to Garth Ennis for the “mother-loving” quote) for a dermatitis diagnosis and nothing to keep us occupied save a “Never Trust A Stranger” daytime movie (documentary? One never knows about these things...) that won the award for Worst Movie Seen on the Road so far. We traipsed across the city like we owned it and finished the night with soup and electronic music making. The next morning we hit a pub and played billiards for a bit, then went to Capital Hill and drank over at the 12^th Avenue Taproom until we passed out (at 1:30 AM, drunkards that we are). Morning #2: Banana French Toast and Kayaking down the Harpeth River, thine name is SALVATION! Yes, we took the kayak out after plastic bagging my wounded foot (it still got wet) and lolled down the river, letting it carry us for a few hours. We got booted out by Forest Rangers an hour and a half before the time allotted for our friends canoe rentals, for whatever reasons. Try talking your way out of coming onto the river bank and going home early to a nice, apologetic Tennessee Forest Ranger whose gun is prominently displayed on his hip, and I'll buy you a beer, for, if you succeed, you surely are a smoother talker than I and my associates. World famous Spaghetti and Italian Sausage, garlic bread, and two episodes of the X-Files and the Simpsons Halloween Special XVII, and it's our last night in Nashville with some cool people. Did I mention the drums/ five string electric bass guitar jam session? I didn't? Oh...you should have been there.